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Payday banking outages will happen again but are unlikely to occur tomorrow, according to a banking technology expert.

Online banking failures on the final Friday of the last two months, payday for many, were seen as millions of customers of different institutions were locked out of accounts or unable to send or receive payments.

At the end of January, Barclays experienced problems in branches and online for days, while in February issues – which did not appear to be related – were encountered by Lloyds, Halifax, Nationwide, TSB, Bank of Scotland and First Direct.

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Similar outages “will absolutely happen again”, said Paul Taylor, chief executive of bank technology company Thought Machine, which sells cloud computing solutions to the banking industry.

Given the attention generated by the last two paydays, Mr Taylor said his guess is this Friday will be safe as every bank’s chief information officer is “super aware” of the day and that “it would be devastating for reputation if anything happened”.

The troubles, however, are not unique to the last two paydays but have just been more visible and complained about, Mr Taylor told Sky News.

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“My guess is that we’re talking about visibility, not occurrence. I’m aware of bank problems on paydays for many years.”

Through his job, Mr Taylor said he speaks to a major bank every day and counts Lloyds Banking Group as a client.

Why are glitches happening?

These issues will continue to arise as lenders grapple with “creaking infrastructure”, Mr Taylor said.

“The sheer volume of payments can overwhelm the bank, and that’s why it’s particularly susceptible on this [pay] day”.

“The problem that banks have is that the systems are old and the systems are fragile”, he said.

“One problem causes a knock-on effect, and that knock-on effect ripples through the bank, and then the end result is on payday that the payments don’t get made”.

Solving the issue is expensive and time-consuming, he added, even for banks that have enjoyed higher profits in recent years, thanks to elevated interest rates.

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Could ageing tech be behind banking outages?

Many banks are moving to more modern infrastructure, Mr Taylor said, but it takes time and banks don’t want to get it wrong.

But some are “so entrenched in this legacy technology”, he said.

The UK banks are “not that bad” when compared to international competition and each spend billions on IT every year, Mr Taylor caveated.

Despite this, no banks contacted by Sky News said glitches wouldn’t happen again.

What went wrong on paydays?

And when banks were asked what caused the glitches last payday, none responded with an explanation.

After parts of Barclays were down in January, the phenomenon began being investigated by the influential Treasury Committee of MPs.

As part of this, banks were asked to outline the outages they’ve experienced and why.

In the days before the February payday, nine top UK banks told the committee typical reasons for failures included problems with third-party suppliers, disruption caused by systems changes and internal software malfunctions.

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Those companies had a total of 803 hours of unplanned outages over the last two years, they said, equivalent to 33 days, comprised of 158 individual IT failures.

What have banks said?

TSB and Natwest referred Sky News to the banking lobby group UK Finance, which said it did not know what was behind the past two payday problems.

“The banking industry invests significantly in the resilience of systems and technology,” UK Finance’s managing director of operational resilience David Raw told Sky News.

“The ongoing investment means incidents which cause significant disruption happen very rarely,” he said

“Incidents can be short in duration, but if an issue does arise the bank will always work extremely hard to rectify it as quickly as possible and minimise the customer impact.”

Santander UK said it was not affected by the last two payday outages. “We have robust systems in place to ensure that our services remain operational for customers,” a spokesperson said.

“Since January 2023, our services have been available to customers for 99.9% of the time. When there is a disruption, our priority is to minimise its impact and restore services as quickly as possible and support customers through our alternative channels and ensure that no customer is left out of pocket as a result.”

A spokesperson for HSBC, which also owns First Direct, said: “We continue to invest in our operational resilience to provide the best possible service for our customers”.

“The end of each month brings increased transaction volumes and heightened demand across the banking services industry, and so we plan accordingly – enhancing system capacity as well as limiting non-essential, back-end system changes and updates.”

Nationwide, The Co-operative Bank, Lloyds – who also own the Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands – did not respond to Sky News’s request.

Barclays did not comment.

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Concierge firm founded by Queen’s nephew hunts buyer

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Concierge firm founded by Queen's nephew hunts buyer

Quintessentially, the luxury concierge service founded by the Queen’s nephew, is in talks to find a buyer months after it warned of “material uncertainty” over its future.

Sky News has learned that the company, which was set up by Sir Ben Elliot and his business partners in 1999, is working with advisers on a process aimed at finding a new owner or investors.

City sources said this weekend that Quintessentially was already in discussions with prospective buyers and was anticipating receipt of a number of firm offers.

Sir Ben, the former Conservative Party co-chairman under Boris Johnson, owns a significant minority stake in the company.

The Quintessentially group operates a number of businesses, although its core activity remains the provision of lifestyle support to high net worth individuals including celebrities, royalty, and leading businesspeople.

It also counts major companies among its clients and offers services such as organising private jet flights and performances by top musicians.

The sale process is being overseen by a firm called Beyond, although further details, including the price that the business might fetch, were unclear on Saturday.

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One insider said parties who had been contacted by Beyond were being offered the option to buy a controlling interest in Quintessentially.

This could be implemented through a combination of the repayment of outstanding loans, an injection of new funding into the business, and the purchase of existing shareholders’ interests, they added.

Quintessentially’s founders, including Sir Ben, are thought to be keen to retain an equity interest in the company after any deal.

In January 2022, newspaper reports suggested that Quintessentially had been put up for sale with a valuation of £140m.

Deloitte, the accountancy firm, was charged with finding a buyer at the time but a transaction failed to materialise.

Sir Ben, who was knighted in Mr Johnson’s resignation honours list, turned to one of Quintessentially’s shareholders for financial support during the pandemic.

World Fuel Services, an energy and aviation services company, is owed £15.5m as well as £3.5m in accrued interest, according to one person close to the process.

The loan is said to include a warrant to convert it into equity upon repayment.

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Quintessentially does not disclose the number or identities of many of its clients, although it said in annual accounts filed at Companies House in January that it had increased turnover to £29.6m in the year to 30 April 2024.

The accounts suggested the company was seeing growth in demand from clients internationally.

“During the last year, we have not only renewed important corporate contracts like Mastercard, but have also expanded by adding new corporate clients like Swiss4 in the UK, R360 in India, and Visa in the Middle East and South America,” they said.

In its experiences and events division, it won a contract to work with the Red Sea Film Festival and to provide corporate concierge services to the Saudi Premier League.

It added that Allianz, the German insurer, BMW, and South African lender Standard Bank were among other clients with which it had signed contracts.

The accounts included the warning of a “risk that the pace and level at which business returns could be materially less than forecast, requiring the group and company to obtain external funding which may not be forthcoming and therefore this creates material uncertainty that may cast ultimately cast doubt about the … ability to continue as a going concern”.

This weekend, a Quintessentially spokesman declined to comment on the sale process.

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Superstar Adele joins backers of music royalties platform Audoo

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Superstar Adele joins backers of music royalties platform Audoo

Adele, the Grammy award-winning artist, has joined the list of music superstars investing in Audoo, a music technology company which helps artists to receive fairer royalty payments.

Sky News has learnt that the British musician and Adam Clayton, the U2 bassist, have injected money into Audoo as part of a £7m funding round.

The pair join Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney and ABBA’s Bjorn Ulvaeus as shareholders in the company.

Changes to Audoo’s share register were filed at Companies House in recent days.

Audoo, which was established by former musician Ryan Edwards, is trying to address the perennial issue of public performance royalties, in order to ensure musicians are rewarded when their work is played in public venues.

Mr Edwards is reported to have been motivated to set up the company after hearing his own music played at football stadia and in bars, without any payment for it.

Estimates suggest that artists lose out on billions of dollars of unaccounted royalties each year.

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London-based Audoo uses a monitoring device – which it calls an Audio Meter – to recognise songs played in public venues, and which is said to have a 99% success rate.

It has struck what it describes as industry-first partnerships with organisations including the music licensing company PPL/PRS to track and report songs played in public performance locations such as cafes, hair salons, shops and gyms.

“At Audoo, we’re incredibly proud of the continued support we’re receiving as we work to make music royalties fairer and more transparent for artists and rights-holders around the world through our pioneering technology,” Mr Edwards told Sky News in a statement on Friday.

“We have successfully reached £7m in our latest funding round.

“This funding marks a pivotal moment for Audoo as we focus on our growth in North America and across Europe, bringing us closer to our mission of revolutionising the global royalty landscape.”

Sources said the new capital would be used partly to finance Audoo’s growth in the US.

The latest funding round takes the total amount of money raised by the company since its launch to more than $30m.

Mr Edwards has spoken of his desire to establish a major presence in Europe and the US because of their status as the world’s biggest recorded music markets.

Adele’s management company did not respond to an enquiry from Sky News.

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The Sunday Times Rich List: Billionaires fall as King rises to match Rishi Sunak

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The Sunday Times Rich List: Billionaires fall as King rises to match Rishi Sunak

The King’s personal fortune has shot up by £30m to put him on par with Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty, while the overall number of billionaires in the UK has plummeted, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.

The 2025 list, published on Friday, shows the King’s personal wealth grew from £610m to £640m, taking him up 20 places to 258 – level with former prime minister Mr Sunak and his wife.

The number of overall UK billionaires has fallen to 156 from 165 in 2024, marking the biggest drop since the rich list began 37 years ago.

Gopi Hinduja and his family, behind the Indian conglomerate Hinduja Group, topped the list for the fourth year running with £35.3bn.

Meanwhile, founder and chairman of global chemicals company Ineos Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who became part owner of Manchester United last year, dropped from fourth place to seventh after his reported wealth went from £23.5bn to £17.05bn.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe. Pic: PA.
Image:
Sir Jim Ratcliffe. Pic: PA.

Sir Jim’s £6.47bn losses marked the biggest on the list, while Russian-born brothers Igor and Dmitry Bukhman, who built a fortune on mobile games such as Gardenscapes and Fishdom, made the biggest gains with nearly £6.2bn.

New entries included makeup mogul Charlotte Tilbury with £350m and Ellen DeGeneres, who left the US for the Cotswolds last year.

Ellen DeGeneres with wife Portia de Rossi at Wimbledon. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Ellen DeGeneres with wife Portia de Rossi at Wimbledon. Pic: Reuters

The Sunday Times said the list was one of its toughest to compile due to Donald Trump’s tariffs and the subsequent stock market turbulence, adding many from previous years had dropped off the list and others were no longer eligible having fled Britain after Labour’s non-dom crackdown.

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Overall, the combined wealth of those on the list stood at £772.8bn – down 3% from the last list.

Speaking to Anna Jones on Sky News Breakfast, Rich List compiler Rob Watts highlighted the story of Tom and Phil Beahon, who own sportswear clothing brand Castore which is now worth £1bn, as one of his favourites.

The brothers from Wirral have debuted at joint 345 on the list with an estimated wealth of £350m.

Calling their story “inspiring”, Mr Watts said: “They dreamed of being sportsmen as lads – one of them got onto the books of Tranmere Rovers and the other played cricket for Lancashire, but their sporting careers were over in their early 20s.

“And they say that failure was critical to driving them to create this £1bn sports kit business that you’ll now see being worn by the England cricket team and the England rugby team.”

File photo dated 21-09-2024 of England's Olly Stone who has been ruled out for the majority of the summer after undergoing knee surgery. Issue date: Friday April 4, 2025. PA
Image:
England cricketer Olly Stone wearing a kit manufactured by Castore. Pic: PA

The top 20:

1. Gopi Hinduja and family – £35.3bn

2. David and Simon Reuben and family – £26.87bn

3. Sir Leonard Blavatnik – £25.73bn

4. Sir James Dyson and family – £20.8bn

5. Idan Ofer – £20.12bn

6. Guy, George, Alannah and Galen Weston and family – £17.75bn

7. Sir Jim Ratcliffe – £17.05bn

8. Lakshmi Mittal and family – £15.44bn

9. John Fredriksen and family – £13.68bn

10. Igor and Dmitry Bukhman – £12.54bn

11. Kirsten and Jorn Rausing – £12.51bn

12. Michael Platt – £12.5bn

13. Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken and Michel de Carvalho – £10.09bn

14. Duke of Westminster and the Grosvenor family – £9.88bn

15. Lord Bamford and family – £9.45bn

16. Denise, John and Peter Coates – £9.44bn

17. Carrie and Francois Perrodo and family – £9.3bn

18. Barnaby and Merlin Swire and family – £9.25bn

19. Marit, Lisbet, Sigrid and Hans Rausing – £9.09bn

20. Alex Gerko – £8.75bn

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